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AN ANCIENT Egyptian pyramid could have collapsed, a city devastated by Hurricane Katrina could have suffered further and the Queen could have slipped off her throne, had it not been for one Isle of Wight company.

That company’s owner has now offered to fix the Koan at St Mary’s Hospital and hopefully the challenge presented by the much-maligned rainbow sculpture will not prove a step too far.

Owner Ian Murray, of Technical Services Team Ltd, (TST) — a company dedicated to strengthening and reinforcing ancient and historic buildings — offered to relight the sculpture and set it spinning free of charge, as a thank you to St Mary’s staff for caring for him through life-threatening illnesses, heart attacks, accidents and stroke.

Civil and mechanical engineer Ian, who says his love of historic buildings and enthusiasm for his work has kept him working past retirement, set up the company on the Island in the 1990s, and with his team of skilled contractors has worked all around the world on a host of mind-boggling projects.

Jobs have included reinforcing the sarcophagus of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu, stabilising a luxurious grotto in the Ascot garden of an Abu Dhabi prince, and recently strengthening supporting beams under the Queen’s bathroom at Buckingham Palace.

Not every job is so far from home for the company which has also worked on Osborne House, The Needles lighthouse and the Old Church of St Boniface, in Bonchurch.

Ian said: "Though we work all around the world, our Island customers at home are more important to us than anyone else.

"I like to think of us as 'locally world famous’."

• Read the full feature in the current edition of the Isle of Wight County Press, Friday, July 4.